


Fake Empire Timestamps

by Alsike



Series: Fake Empire [3]
Category: Criminal Minds, X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: F/F, Timestamp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-11-07 00:03:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11047116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alsike/pseuds/Alsike
Summary: Didi stays with Emily -- and Emma, when she can, for a long time.





	1. Places out of Time

“Do you think she’ll be all right?”

Emma twisted her arm through Emily’s and dragged her down the path into the woods.  “She’ll be fine.  Do you have any idea of what the servants think I will do to them if anything happens to her?”

“No.”  Emily looked at her.  “Do you?”

Emma grimaced.  “Yes, actually.  It’s pretty horrible.  I don’t know how they got such an idea.”

Emily laughed and let herself be tugged into the forest.

“What is this place?  I never thought you’d just have a house in Vermont.  Do you ever come here?”

“It used to belong to one of my mother’s sisters.  We spent summers here before she and my father fell out and we weren’t invited back.  My father bankrupted her and her husband for vengeance and they were forced to sell it along with most of their other assets.  A few years back I noticed it was up for sale and bought it.  It wasn’t even sixty thousand.”

“Sentimental reasons?”

Emma shrugged.  “I have a few good memories here, but mainly it was an investment.”

They broke through the barrier of trees and stepped into a clearing that sloped down to a riverbank.  Rope swings hung over the river, and a rough tree house sat in the branches of a monstrous gnarled old tree.

“Oh!”  Emily stepped back in surprise.  She had dreamt of something like this as a child.  The closest she had come was two weeks on a lake in Michigan with a dock and a sailboat before being dragged back into the endless grind of parties and clattering, terrifying airplane rides.

Emma was already halfway up the tree.

“Christian and I built this.” 

Emily eyed it askance and wouldn’t climb up.

Emma laughed.  “Christian, myself, and two under-gardeners built this.  Don’t worry.  I had it all checked out before we came.  It’s still sturdy.”

Emily tentatively scaled the makeshift ladder and wobbled unhappily as she tried to get over the side.  Emma grabbed her and pulled her up.  She flopped on her stomach and gasped in relief to be on something solid.

“You really are not the tomboy you pretend to be.”

Emily looked up and scowled.  “I was repressed as a child.”

Emma nodded.  “Brothers are important means of avoiding repression.”  She leaned back and looked up at the sky through the canopy.  Emily rolled over and sat up, testing out the wood.

The tree house was a simple flat platform with a low railing around the sides and a small peaked roof.  A few leaves had settled on it, but otherwise the structure seemed to have been swept recently.  One or two beams were fresh cut wood.

“Do you miss him?”

Emma glanced at him and shook her head.  “I’ve missed him for a long time.  Even before he was gone, I missed the time we spent together.  I was never happy that he had to grow up and leave me behind.  If I had him back, that feeling wouldn’t go away.”

“Your sisters never came up here?”

“No.  Cordelia was too little, and Adrienne was horrified of anything that might put her in a close proximity to dirt.”

The wind picked up then and the tree creaked alarmingly.  The leaves rustled overhead and Emily scooted closer to Emma, pressing her body against her side.

Emma’s arm wrapped around her waist, as if it were natural.  “I was so angry when I found out we weren’t coming back here,” she said musingly.  “But now I wonder whether it was a good thing we didn’t come back.  I don’t have any bad memories associated with it.  I never had to find my brother passed out up here, or blowing one of the under-gardeners.”  She shook her head.  “Still, it would have been a good place to come when I was trying to start smoking.”  Emily laughed at that.  Definitely better than hanging half out a window and hoping, desperately, that your mother, with her bloodhound sense of smell, didn’t walk by. 

“I never brought anyone here before.”  Emma’s eyes slid over her, and Emily wondered if there was some more subtle telepathy that made it so easy to know what she was thinking.  She hadn’t had a place like this either, nowhere where it could be just kissing, just fooling around.  There were always beds, always pressure and meaning and danger.  Teenagers needed a chance to be teenagers.  It was too hard to become an adult so quickly.

Emily moved quickly.  She put her hands on Emma’s shoulders and swung her leg over to straddle her lap.  “You brought me.”

Emma grinned and leaned back on her palms.  “I seem to bring you a lot of places I never brought anyone before.”

Emily laughed.  “What’s with that?”

When she leaned down to kiss her, Emma closed her eyes and parted her lips, and Emily wondered if she was kissing her Emma, or a girl-child who had died without the chance to just fall in love.  


	2. Everyday Fiascoes

Emily had discovered a whole new exciting list of skills that she wasn’t any good at since the four-year-old dimension hopper arrived on her doorstep.  Most recently, sewing had been added.

Deirdre had learned about Halloween at school, and it had been the most thrilling idea she had ever encountered.  And she wanted to go as an Empress.

Jubilee had abandoned her, because her university club was running a haunted house, and they were working their asses off to get it finished.

And as always Deirdre had a very particular idea of what the costume should look like, and none of the commercially available options were satisfactory.  So she drew it and proceeded to describe it to Emily in detail.  Emily managed to find an old bedspread of suitable quality, and approached the construction with determination and a large roll of duct tape.

Deirdre was not pleased by the duct tape, so Emily found an old travel sewing kit and did her best, but after several bleeding fingers and feral growls of frustration, the robe was shapeless and rather lopsided.

 _This isn’t going to do._   Didi’s expression said.

 _Well, this is as good as it’s going to get_.  Emily glared.

Didi narrowed her eyes.  _If you don’t fix it, I’m going to cry._

Emily called JJ.

“ _You!”_

Emily froze.  “Um.”

“Do you have any idea what that demon spawn of yours has done now?”

“Um, no?”

“Do you _know_ what she has convinced Henry to be for Halloween?”

“No?”

“A slave, Emily!  She wants him to go as her slave!  And I thought he wanted to be a ghoul or something, because he kept on going on about chains, but now he is prancing around in his underpants with a ball and chain around his ankle, pretending to be a slave, and I know I have lived in Virginia for almost ten years, but I am still a Yankee, and I am _so_ not okay with this!”

“Um… are you any good at sewing?”

There was a long frozen moment.  Then JJ growled into the phone, “I am not talking to you anymore, call Garcia.”  And she hung up.

Emily called Garcia.

Garcia was over in minutes, her sewing kit in tow, and with only the barest of instructions from Deirdre (and not a single reprimand), managed to turn Emily’s mess into something actually resembling Empress robes (if the particular style they involved had ever been seen before on this earth, which they hadn’t, but at least they looked like something that _could_ be interpreted as Empress robes, if worn with the right bearing and style.)

Garcia shook her head in horror when she found out that Emily wasn’t planning on dressing up, and shanghaied her over to her apartment where she found a pirate hat and a cutlass that would fit the bill.  Didi picked out the red sash and eyepatch.  Emily stood in front of the mirror and wondered if she had grown up in the states, whether this would be any less embarrassing.

Morgan hosted pumpkin carving in his apartment.  He even convinced Hotch to bring Jack, although at almost twelve, he felt far too old to be hanging out with children.  But he liked Morgan.

JJ was ignoring Emily, but when Emily ducked off into another room to avoid being splattered with pumpkin innards, she spotted JJ dropping into service, wielding the knife to cut out Deirdre’s design.  Emily shook her head.  Why did she always get so worked up about Henry being subservient to Didi when it was obviously learned behavior?

There were only a few close calls involving small children and knives, and in the end Morgan was the one who ended up with a bleeding finger, but he smiled and waved as they all left.

Didi frowned as she stood, half toppling backwards with the weight of the pumpkin.  “We don’t have a step.”

Emily blinked, totally bewildered as she was unlocking the door to the apartment.  It took her a good minute to figure what the problem was.

“Oh, maybe we can put it in the window.”

Didi considered this and nodded her approval.

Deirdre slept like a baby.  Emily was sick all night from mixing red wine and candy corn.

JJ brought Henry over that afternoon and they went to visit Jubilee’s haunted house.  Emily stayed outside, because she knew better.  Deirdre and Henry enjoyed themselves immensely, managing to pull the cloak off of an axe murderer and throw candy at a ghoul until he ran away.  JJ staggered out a few minutes later, utterly horrified.  Emily gave her a look.

“You have _no_ idea how much worse those things are after you’ve seen the things we’ve seen.”

“And this is why I stayed outside.”

JJ’s neighborhood was a madhouse of small children as dusk started to fall.  Will was standing on the porch passing out candy to the groups of tiny tots being carried around by indulgent mums.  Didi and Henry changed quickly but noisily in their costumes, acquired pillowcases, and begged to begin.

JJ came out of the house wearing a pair of pink rabbit ears and a Mia Hamm soccer uniform, and Emily’s hand shot to her mouth.

“Don’t you dare laugh!  If you laugh I will talk in pirate speak to you all night!”

One of her neighbors wore a mask and popped out of the doorway, making Didi and Henry yelp.

“Finally,” Emily hissed under her breath, and JJ gave her a wry look, her ears bobbing as she turned.

“You’re hopeless, you know,” she said.  “She just walks all over you.”

Emily did not comment on the carefully tattered slave costume that was at least a bit warmer than Henry’s first plan of just his underpants.  But JJ had apparently decided to speak to her again.

There were floods of kids in the neighborhood, devils and witches and … turtles, and Harry Potters, but Emily thought the people would probably recall the exchange that went:

“And what are you, little girl?”

“I’m an Empress, and this is my slave!”

“Hi,” Henry would add shyly.  JJ would elbow him.  “Trick or treat,” he would murmur, his head down.  Deirdre would stick out her bucket, which after a few houses she would empty into the pillowcase that Emily had slung over her shoulder.  She carried Henry’s too.  Didi said it looked like booty, but it mainly meant she could stay four or five feet away from the action.

After an hour and a half, Emily felt like her elbow was going to fall off.  JJ gently herded them in the direction of home, and the last stop was at her house, where Will happily dropped candy into their bags.

Then came the sorting, where Henry and Didi poured out their loot on the living room carpet and separated it into types, then began the arduous process of trading.  JJ played the arbiter, not wanting Didi to cheat Henry dreadfully, but also knowing that she would probably have to dole it out carefully (just like her mother had, sometimes she hated herself for becoming her mother) so that Henry wouldn’t eat it all at once and then be unhappy that it was gone.

Emily took over on the porch for a while, while Will chased the older kids throwing rotten eggs with a broomstick.

“Are you Jack Sparrow?” a small child of indeterminate gender inquired.

“Um, I was thinking more Yolanda Roccanera.”

The child frowned.  “Who’s that?”

“The daughter of the Black Corsair?”

“I don’t remember her from the movie.”

Emily shook her head, gave the kid some candy and kicked it off the porch.

It was late, and even with all the sugar (which JJ had strictly limited to two pieces), Didi fell asleep in the car on the way back.  Emily carried her up the stairs and put her to bed, wiping off her sticky hands and face.

Jubilee came in late, make up smeared over her cheeks, and exhausted.  She collapsed on her bed, barely managing to kick off her shoes.  Emily brought her a washcloth so she wouldn’t get greasepaint on her sheets, and Jubilee gave her that hesitant look that Emily had learned to read as, “you’re not my mother, you will never be my mother, but I want this so badly, and hate myself for wanting it.”

Emily sat backwards on a chair and asked her how the haunted house had gone.  Jubilee scrubbed her face and told her about how Jeremy, one of the Linguistics grad students, had been dressed up as a mummy and tripped over one of his own bandages and nearly fallen on a small child who wet his pants in terror.

And then Emily took the washcloth, and Jubilee looked up, too tired to shut out the need from her eyes.  Emily smiled and rubbed off one last spot on her nose, and kissed her forehead almost automatically.

“Woo, Emma would kill me if she knew what you did!” Jubilee finally found words to tease as she was half out of the room, and Emily glanced back with a mock glare.

“Well, you’d better behave, or I’ll tell!”  Jubilee ducked her eyes, smiling, and pulled the covers up over her.  Emily turned out the light and shut the door with a soft click behind her.

She dropped the washcloth in the sink and leaned against it, wondering when her life had become something she couldn’t recognize, and why all these kids could break her heart.

“Have a good time?”

“Yeah,” Emily yawned.  Talking to Emma always made her sleepy, and Didi had crawled in with her sometime tonight, a softly snoring hot water bottle curled up against her side.  “But no one reads the Black Corsair anymore.”

There was a pause.  “Reads _what_?”

“Il Corsaro Nero!  Emilio Salgari!  I read them _all_ while I was in Italy.”

“Did you by any chance read them in Italian?”

Emily considered this.  “Maybe.”

Emma laughed.  “Well, you were lucky you weren’t here.  The kids decided to have a dance, and someone spiked the punch.  I _told_ Charles, but he was all, ‘it will be an important lesson for them.’  I think he forgot who was going to have to clean up after the first boy started puking.”

“I’m assuming not you.”

“Are you _joking_?  I saw it coming a mile away and carefully disappeared ten minutes prior.”

Emily laughed and yawned again.  “Well, you should be here next time.  Didi makes a good Empress, but I’ve no doubt you could teach her a thing or two.”

“Mmm, next time,” Emma said softly.  And Emily could almost feel her fingers curling in her hair and her soft breath on the back of her neck.  Next time was only a whisper away.


	3. Just Like Heaven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of those iTunes Shuffle-Fic things

_Just Like Heaven_

_AFI (Covering the Cure)_

 

Emily had never really thought what it would be like to have kids.  She didn’t know what it would be like to suddenly not be able to step into your bathtub without banging your foot on the sharp edge of a toy.  She hadn’t expected children to be so naturally mendacious.  Didi at least was obvious about it.  When she cuddled up to you and told you how much she loved you, it was usually pretty clear what she wanted to get out of it.

            Emily was her servant in all the ways that counted, clothes, food, cleanliness, and if it didn’t match her expectations, it was rejected with utter derision, sometimes with a strong over-arm throw.  Emily hadn’t anticipated what it would be like to have another person, even a little one, living in her house, interfering with her well-ordered life. 

But sometimes, after a bath and endless struggles with the shampoo and dark tangled curls, Didi would curl up in her arms, Emily’s nose pressed to the top of her head.  The way she smelled was just like heaven.

 

_Don’t Say_

_St. Lola in the Fields_

 

“I just can’t be there.  I have to work.  I…”

Emily couldn’t find any more words.  All the reasons and excuses seemed thin and faded in the face of Didi’s expression.  How could she say she was protecting other children, helping other people, when she couldn’t even be there for the child who was supposed to be her own daughter?

“You don’t love me.  I want M’ma!”  Didi struck out at her with her little fists.  “Mommy’s no good.  You’re not my mommy!”

“Didi,  Don’t say…”  She caught her hands, backing away from the blows.  How could she say it wasn’t true?  “I have to work.” 

The tears came.  Emily walked away and closed the door to her room.

“ _Mommy!_ ”

The anguish was visceral, but Emily couldn’t respond.  Didi wasn’t calling out for her.

 

_Limit to Your Love_

_Feist_

 

“Why won’t you come home?”

Emma leaned against her hand, too tired to stay poised and collected when accosted by the only girl who could break her heart with a word. Well… not the only girl, and that was why she couldn’t go back.

“I can’t.  I have obligations here.”

There was silence on the other end of the phone.  Somehow Emma couldn’t believe that the reason was because Didi didn’t know the word obligations.  She knew the tone too well.

“If you don’t come back, I won’t love you anymore.”

Emma closed her eyes.  “I don’t expect you to.  If I don’t deserve it, it is your right to take it away.”

She would never blame her daughter if she hated her for being someone who couldn’t even overcome her own fears.

 

_Death of Seasons_

_A.F.I._

 

February was the worst month.  Winter wasn’t over but Deirdre was tired of snow, tired of cold, tired of being housebound.  Emily was tired of dragging sleds up hills, of wiping runny noses, of picking caked snow out of her collar.  There was no sign of spring.  The snow looked dirty and limp, or frozen into ice-tea chunks in the gutter. 

That weekend being inside was too much, and Emily and Didi sat on the bench in the park looking at the tired dingy snow.

A serial killer had gotten the better of Emily that week and sent her into a pile of it, lacerating her face with cold.  Emily’s eye was swollen and her face was red with scratches.  The people who passed gave her horrified looks. 

She thought that if she hadn’t been with a child, they would have been pitying ones.  But being brutalized like this made her look like a victim of domestic abuse who had been forced to flee her house.  One matronly lady came up and asked if they needed directions to a shelter where they could spend the night.

“It’s cold,” said Didi.  Emily, too tired to move just grunted in response.  Didi crawled into her lap.  Emily put her arms around the girl and ran the tassels of the purple hat through her fingers.  It was too bright and garish to be a flower.  But it seemed like one anyway.

_Smells Like Teen Spirit_

_Nirvana_

 

It was clear that Didi was going to be a troublesome teenager.  She was twelve and already showing her individuality by wearing spiked chokers and fingerless, elbow-length gloves.  Emma looked at her musingly, and then she eyed Emily.

“Did you…?”

The dark flush that enveloped Emily’s face was proof enough and Emma couldn’t help but laugh.

“There’s nothing we can do then.”  She shook her head. “It seems to be genetic.”

“Hey,” Emily tried to recover.  “It was just a phase.”

Emma shook her head.  “I am feeling a very strong desire to see you in a corset about now… and black lipstick, and knee-length boots.”

“I don’t have any of that stuff anymore!”

“Yes you do.  I found it in your mother’s attic.”

Emily covered her face.

 

_Banana Pancakes_

_Jack Johnson_

 

The clouds outside made it seem like twilight, even though it was only nine in the morning.  Emily stretched dismally as she dragged herself out of bed.  It was Sunday, she was off, thank goodness.  But it looked like a crappy day.

“Mommy?”

Emily jumped with shock and fell over a pile of books sitting next to her dresser.  Didi was sitting up in her bed, looking out the window.  She breathed three or four times.  How many times would she forget the existence of her dimension-traveling daughter?

“It’s raining.  No park today?”

“I guess not.”

Didi looked impossibly depressed.  Emily sighed and sat back down on the bed ruffling her sleep-mussed hair.  “Why don’t we make pancakes instead?”

 

_Elvenpath_

_Nightwish_

 

Jubilee had started reading Didi the Lord of the Rings as her bedtime book.  It wasn’t inappropriate.  Emily had read her about half of Slaughterhouse Five before JJ had picked it up absently, read a page, and then given her a serious rant about appropriate reading material for children.  Emily had always thought Slaughterhouse Five was very kid friendly.  Death happened in lots of kids’ books, but apparently it was only okay if it was heroic death.

Didi seemed to be enjoying the Tolkien well enough.  Emily often peeked in to check on how it was going.  The Lord of the Rings always reminded her of when she had been a teenager in the Ukraine, functionally illiterate in the Cyrillic alphabet and miserable.  Her uncle had sent her a copy of the Tolkien trilogy and she had read it over and over again that summer until she nearly memorized it.

Even when it was clear that Didi and Jubilee were fine, Emily would lean against the doorframe, remembering the warm summer days, the words spilling over her like honey, spread out under a tree in the park that ran along the river in Kiev, her eyes closed, listening for the soft footfalls of an elf.

 

_Paper Home_

_Raccoon_

 

Emma always felt that she was standing on the outside.  Emily had made her feel that way for a long time.  She had always been whole, fulfilled on her own.  And Emma had been that way too, until suddenly she wasn’t.

Didi loved her.  She always was so happy to see her, but it made her feel like a visitor.  She and Emily had this schedule, this system, this connection, and Emma was left out.

Deirdre made her help hang a tablecloth over a card table in the living room, and huddled underneath it, pulling Emma underneath with her.

“This is our house,” she said.

“All right.”  Emma smiled and let her play.  For a moment she felt at home.

 

_Sakebi to Okori no Mukukata he_

            [Turning in the Direction of the Screaming and the Death] (No, I did not know the meaning of this while writing the fic.)

_Yuki Kajiura & Sahashi Toshihiko_

 

Didi was learning to dance in gym class.  She came home complaining about it.  She had to touch _boys_ she said, who smelled, and never stepped in the right place.

Emily laughed at her and asked her if she didn’t play soccer with the same boys.

She did, she replied, but they weren’t _bad_ at soccer.

Emma found this amusing as well when she called.  “You’re lucky we aren’t making you go to etiquette school.  I went there for five years of ballroom lessons and table manners, on _Saturdays_.”

“Eww!”

“You had to do it too?”  Emily leaned back on the bed, phone tucked between ear and shoulder.  “I always hid in the corner and wanted to die.”

“I would have asked you to dance.”

Emily laughed.  “No one asked me to dance.”

“I would have.”  Emma’s voice grew wry.  “Everyone was too scared of me to ask, so I always ended up with the kid who was painfully shy and certain to be ignored.  Eventually I asked right away, not waiting for the others to pair up.  It made it look like I wanted to dance with the mouth-breathers and incessant wrigglers, so I didn’t have to be ashamed of ending up with them.”

“That’s me, mouth-breather with ADD.  Glad to know you find that attractive.”

Emma chuckled.  “Sometimes they grow up well.  But I _would_ have asked.”  She paused.  “Next time I see you… I’ll ask.”

 

_Eyes Without a Face_

_Billy Idol_

 

Didi’s favorite activity to do alone was drawing.  She did not show signs of being the next Picasso.  Jackson Pollock was more her forte, but Emily carefully collected all the pictures and put them in a file.  The most current ones decorated the refrigerator and the cabinets in the kitchen.  Clay tentacled objects decorated her once sparse mantelpiece.

According to Miss Manners this was perfectly appropriate decor.

The only trouble was that Didi had recently gotten into drawing eyes.  Just eyes.  Nothing but eyes.  Eyes without a face like the beast from Cheshire was a grin without a cat.  One of them, the best, took up the entire page, blue and penetrating.  It was hung upon Emily’s bedroom door.  Every time she saw it she nearly fell over with shock.

By some combination of chance and design, Didi had managed to capture Emma’s disapproving expression.  It wasn’t losing its impact.


	4. Disney Princess Bubble Bath

Emily had the best bathtub ever.  It was vast, and technologically advanced, and aesthetically restrained (silver and black marble with the feel of a Japanese pond).  It was comfortable, and could be kept warm for an impossibly long time.  Basically it was perfect.

The only trouble was the brat had co-opted it, and now it was full of toys and Disney Princess bubble bath.  Emma had sat on the edge of the tub while Didi played with her ocean liners and battleships and considered whether Emily would ever be able to put out there again.

When Didi was in bed, Emma ran a fresh bath and dumped as many toys as she could into the hall.

“Coming?”

Emily shook her head.  Emma had been complaining about this state of affairs for long enough that nothing she was planning was in any way a surprise.  “ _Emma_.”

But she stripped off and slid into the lovely hot water.  Emma did too and rescued a toy submarine from the bottom.  She made sound effects and drove it over to the side.

“Needs drydocking for repairs,” she said.

Emily laughed at her antics and leaned back in the deep water.  “You want to play?”

Emma gave her a dirty look.  “Yes I want to play.”  She slid off the ledge and onto her knees, placing her hands one on each side of Emily.  “But I want you to be my toy.”  She leaned in and pressed her lips into Emily’s cleavage, her fingers sliding along her inner thigh.

“What sort of game is this?” asked Emily with a faux-innocent smirk.

“If you really want me to say I’m looking for a submarine port down here, darling, you’re getting a spanking.”

 


End file.
